More Top Stories
‘Nothing to worry about’: Prime Minister Brown on China agreement
16 February 2025
‘Serious questions’: Opposition challenges China partnership
15 February 2025
No-confidence motion against PM and his Cabinet faces delays
15 February 2025
Ruta Mave: People’s Republic of China red flag
10 February 2025
No debt in China deal
8 February 2025
Thomas Wynne: Haka with the taniwha or dance with the dragon?
8 February 2025
‘Paedophile’ gets 13 years in prison
22 January 2025
Thomas Wynne: Where were our leaders while children suffered?
25 January 2025
$541.7m tourism earnings
25 January 2025
Cook Islands passport proposal
6 January 2025
Top cop position advertised
7 December 2024
Police need numbers and bigger budget
9 December 2024
Niki Rattle: A call for stronger human rights protections
10 December 2024
Solid and Hazardous Waste Bill referred to Parliament committee
10 December 2024
DPM defends CIIC finance and travel policies
6 December 2024
Cook Islands has its first mosque
14 November 2024
CI Muslim opens up about her faith and journey
16 November 2024
RAC to address mosque legality
19 November 2024
I don’t expect much change: PM Brown on US Elections
6 November 2024
Fifth weekly Sydney flight to Rarotonga announced
23 October 2024
CIIC directors seek $350,000 in damages over defamatory claims
21 October 2024
Man found guilty of rape, burglary
24 September 2024
Tenants face water bill burden
8 October 2024
Concerns over Minister’s role in inmate work releases: PAC
5 October 2024
Tourism contribution set to surpass half-billion dollar mark
25 September 2024
Anxiety on the rise: Cook Islands faces mental health challenge
7 September 2024
MCI rejects ‘dark fleet’ label
3 August 2024
Pacific
Cook Islander describes ‘severe’ impact of Tropical Cyclone Alfred in Australia
Cook Islander Archie Atiau says the impact of Tropical Cyclone Alfred, which affected South East Queensland and the New South Wales North Coast, Australia, has been severe.
Tabuya ‘an ideal Minister for Information’, Fiji’s PM says
Fiji's Prime Minister is set to restore a backbencher to cabinet after she appeared in a private video dancing naked.
Cyclone sparks Zika alarm
NUKU‘ALOFA – Aid agencies said they were concerned cyclone Winston could cause severe damage after it hit northern islands earlier this week, especially after a prolonged El Niño-induced drought weakened livestock and crops across Tonga.
Cyclone hits Tonga twice
NUKU‘ALOFA – Tonga is getting smashed by Cyclone Winston which has double backed and intensified – and Fiji is preparing for the Category Four storm to hit its islands over the weekend.
Opposition launches manifesto
APIA – The opposition party, Tautua Samoa has officially announced its manifesto and 26 candidates for next month’s general election.
'Corruption' keeping students out of university
PORT MORESBY – Papua New Guinea’s universities are facing accusations that a “culture of corruption” causing to their brightest students missing out on places.
Fish dying in Vanuatu waters
PORT VILA – As Vanuatu struggles to cope with minimal food crops in the wake of last year’s Cyclone Pam, the soaring temperatures are now impacting fish stocks.
Russian weapons handed over
SUVA – Russian soldiers are currently in Fiji instructing Republic of Fiji Military Forces officers in the use and maintenance of the Russian-made weapons.
Fears cyclone may double back
PACIFIC – Tonga’s island groups of Tongatapu, Vava’u, Ha’apai and ‘Eua escaped major damage from Tropical Cyclone Winston as it passed through the islands with wind gusts of 120km.
Focus on climate change in Pacific
WELLINGTON – The science is clear, climate change is upon us and nowhere is the impact more serious than in the Pacific.
'We're going to lose islands, whole nations'
WELLINGTON – New Zealand needs to acknowledge that Pacific Island nations face an “ecological holocaust” and “ecocide” thanks to climate change, says Dr Pala Molisa.
Atolls seek alternatives to oblivion
TARAWA – Giant floating islands, castle-like sea walls and mass migration are among some of the “crazy” plans the leader of Kiribati has to save his low-lying Pacific nation from global warming-induced oblivion.
Cyclones misses Vanuatu, heading for Fiji
PORT VILA – Vanuatu’s southern Tafea province has been given the all clear as Tropical Cyclone Winston moves away from the country, but it now looks like the storm will curve back up towards Fiji.
Key not phased by Russian weapons
WELLINGTON – New Zealand’s Prime Minister says he is not concerned about Fiji’s military receiving shipments of weapons donated by Russia.
Christchurch hit by 5.7 quake
CHRISTCHURCH – A “severe” magnitude 5.7 earthquake has hit the New Zealand city of Christchurch almost five years after a deadly tremor devastated the region.
Valentine's day banned in Pakistan
A district in north-western Pakistan has banned Valentine’s Day celebrations.
Vanuatu PM well respected
PORT VILA – Vanuatu’s new prime minister is an accomplished and well respected figure in the country’s politics, according to the head of a Pacific think tank.
Superheated sea kills thousands of fish in Fiji
SUVA – Thousands of dead fish are washing up on the shores of Fiji’s Coral Coast as a result of the recent high temperatures, with a local expert saying reefs could lose a significant amount of coral if seawater temperatures remain high.
Opposition fails to oust Bainimarama
SUVA – The opposition in Fiji failed in an attempt to remove Prime Minister Frank Bainimarama and appoint Ro Teimumu Kepa as the new government leader in a vote of no confidence in parliament on Friday.
New Zealand's '8s' win to stand
SYDNEY – New Zealand will face no disciplinary action despite fielding eight players when the team scored a game-tying try against Australia in the Sydney Sevens.
Papua New Guinea's food bowl is empty
KANMA – Old Kaupa Bani walks with a tall cane fashioned from a black palm outside his hut in Kanma village. Blind, burdened by joint pains, too weak to work his garden, and with no children to look after him, he has been helped by extended family. But as a devastating drought hits Papua New Guinea with force few rural villages were prepared for, the flow of kindness has turned into scraps in the last nine months. Some days Bani eats nothing. “I have to be fed to get strength,” Bani tells an interpreter. “But since the drought, there’s been insufficient food, so I’ve grown very weak. Across the road from the home Bani rarely has the strength to leave, Anna Snaka peels a handful of weevil-ridden sweet potatoes. She adds ferns to this meagre meal she’ll feed her three children, and a barely edible yam scavenged from the bush. Until nine months ago a typical meal would have included fat, sweet potatoes, garden greens, and sometimes fish, corned beef, or chicken, and then pig or goat with taro and cassava on special occasions. Snaka says she has tried planting more food, but the soil is still too hot. She had four pigs, but two have died from lack of food. She bursts into tears as she holds up the bitter yam that she and others in her village must eat out of desperation. She’ll boil it twice and add salt so her children can stomach it. The Papua New Guinean National Disaster Centre estimates the severe El Niño-driven drought currently affects two million people in this large Pacific island nation. In a population of 7.3 million, 87 per cent live outside urban centres; most are subsistence farmers. The Highlands region is normally called the “food bowl” of the nation, so when drought strikes in the Highlands, the effects ripple throughout the economy. Food prices skyrocket, large-scale migration occurs as people search for work or short-term cash, and city workers send money to villages so families can buy food to survive. But the people in Kanma village in Chuave district have few such connections to the modern economy. Anna Snaka has two older children in the Highland hub of Goroka, where they have their own struggles surviving and are unable to send money to help her. Unlike villagers further east, who received 20-kilogramME sacks of rice in government aid, Kanma villagers say they have received no relief. By their own accounts, they are starving. Matthew Kanua, an agronomist and soil scientist, worked through the 1997 drought and now coordinates the response for PNG’s churches. Having assessed the evidence provided by a Fairfax news team, he says Kanma village is slipping from Category 3 to Category 4 in drought assessment terms– that means no food in gardens, only famine food (ferns, unripe bananas, bitter yams) being eaten. Chuave district lies in the central highlands province of Simbu in Papua New Guinea, just 435 kilometres north-west of the busy capital Port Moresby. This rugged, mountainous terrain produces coffee which attracts a premium. Yet the rural road remains a barrier for many in getting their beans to market and joining the cash economy in earnest. There are times, according to local farmer Max Soa, when the road is so wet and impassable that they put their coffee bags on the back of the car and carry the car along Gun-Beroma Road to the nearest junction. The road that becomes Gun-Beroma runs atop a ridge among a handful of narrow ranges that stretch finger-like out of the western slopes of Mount Elimbari. Heartbreaking stories of the drought pervade this 32-kilometre stretch, nowhere more than in Kanma, where the limestone-and-dirt track dips 500 metres before coming to a halt just as the valley tips sharply down to the Wagi river.
Territory confirms Zika cases
PAGO PAGO – American Samoa’s Lieutenant Governor, Lemanu Peleti Mauga, says the territory now has confirmed cases of the Zika virus and has issued an alert.
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